Chicano theater belongs to the larger category of Spanish-speaking theater in the US. The origins of Spanish theater date back to the first conquistadores in the 16th century. Records show dramatic plays dating 1598. In the 19th century, San Francisco and Los Angeles were the major Hispanic theater activity. With the construction of the railroad, Hispanic theater expanded east reaching Chicago by the 1920s. With the great depression and WWI, Hispanic theater would subside and later make a comeback by the 1970s. Cuban theater sprung up in NYC by the last decade in the 19th century. The main reason for their appearance was to support the war for Cuban independence from Spain before WWII. Many criticized playrights happened in Cuban theater in New York, but the most concerning were from Fidel Castro. Hispanic theater flourished across the US given the substantial and fast-growing Spanish-speaking population within the continental US. As a reference, the Hispanic population includes immigrants from Spain as well as from every Spanish speaking country in the western hemisphere. The dramatic impetus derives primarily from Mexico, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Each of these groups experienced historic moments when their relationships to Spain or Mexico and to the United States were altered forever. For the ancestors of the Chicanos, 1848 marks the year they actually became citizens of the territories which would eventually become a part of the United States. Ironically, 1898 is the year both the Cubans and Puerto Ricans were freed from Spanish domination only to find themselves in a quasi-colonial condition with the United States. As inhabitants of a commonwealth, the island Puerto Ricans suffer a colonial destiny which, some say, extends to Puerto Ricans on the mainland. The Cubans' connections to the United States ended in 1959, while the Puerto Ricans continue to live under a commonwealth status. Separation by water pervades the consciousness of both the Cuban and Puerto Rican writers, while a more metaphoric water, a river, sometimes separates the Chicanos from Mexico.